Introduction
A good friend had a dream recently where he met an actual genie. The genie did the obvious—offered him three wishes. My friend struggled inside the dream, trying to decide, until a voice whispered to him:“Ask for understanding.” He didn’t understand. In fact, his confusion woke him up and he lay in bed for a long while, fishing for meaning. Then, in a sudden flash of profound insight, he made the connection.“If I choose understanding for my first wish, then I would know what to ask for with the other two!”
When I heard this, I knew I’d found the perfect introduction for this book because the ability to understand lives at the heart of true forgiveness. And understanding forgiveness resides at the center of fulfilled living.
Most of us don’t understand what forgiveness really is. We think it’s about coming to terms with injury.“He did that to me and he shouldn’t have, but I forgive him.” We’ve all struggled to forgive petty injustices, so it’s mind-boggling when we hear about someone else doing it in an extreme circumstance.
In 1995, Azim Khamisa’s son Tariqu was murdered in a gang-related incident. Azim chose to forgive and followed a path of compassion, not revenge. He created the Tariqu Khamisa Foundation, has written four books, and now offers public presentations and corporate seminars around the world. His message of forgiveness has reached millions.
The 2006 Amish school shooting in Pennsylvania is another chilling but inspiring example. Gunman Charles Roberts killed five young girls before committing suicide. Here’s theWikipedia report on how families of the slain children responded.“An Amish neighbor comforted the Roberts family hours after the shooting and extended forgiveness to them. Amish community members visited and comforted Roberts’s widow, parents, and parents-in-law. One Amish man held Roberts’s sobbing father in his arms, reportedly for as long as an hour, to comfort him. The Amish have also set up a charitable fund for the family of the shooter… Marie Roberts (widow of the killer) wrote an open letter to her Amish neighbors thanking them for their forgiveness, grace, and mercy. She wrote,“Your love for our family has helped to provide the healing we so desperately need. Gifts you’ve given have touched our hearts in a way no words can describe. Your compassion has reached beyond our family, beyond our community, and is changing our world…”1
Mr. Khamisa and the Amish families understood that more hating just compounds the original crime. They refused to do what a killer does. They met hatred with compassion.
In November of 2008 I traveled to India with twenty-four associates on a spiritual retreat. We were in the Oberoi Hotel in Mumbai when terrorists attacked. Four of us were wounded, two were killed, and all of us were under siege for over forty-five hours. When we were rescued by Indian Army SWAT teams and interviewed by the international media, we had our opportunity to do what Azim Khamisa, the Amish families, and many others—largely unreported—have done. Like them, we chose differently. We refused to do as our attackers had done. Instead of speaking in the same language, responding to hate with more hate in return, we compassionately forgave them.
Kia Scherr, who lost her husband and thirteen year-old-daughter in the attack, answered a reporter’s question this way:“I don’t hate the terrorists. I forgive them. And I recall what Jesus said:‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’ They were brainwashed. They believed what they were doing was right. No, I don’t hate them, I have compassion for them.” Kia took the lead with us to create a non-profit foundation, One Life Alliance, dedicated to honoring the sacredness of life. She accompanied me back to Mumbai in November, 2010 for a memorial program on the second anniversary of the attack, where she met with President and Michelle Obama.
This book is our story of what happened
